A new lawsuit brought by the Democratic Party and backed by the Harris-Walz campaign was filed Monday to challenge recent changes to Georgia’s election certification rules.
The lawsuit, targeting Georgia’s State Election Board, contends that “chaos” will ensue in November if a series of last-minute rule changes by the unelected panel are allowed to stand.
The new rules require local boards to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying election results, which critics have warned could cause delays.
They also say any discrepancies discovered at a precinct must yield an investigation, and if an error beyond correction is identified, it’s up to the local boards to determine how to “compute the votes justly.”
“Through rulemaking, SEB has attempted to turn the straightforward and mandatory act of certification — i.e. confirmation of the accurate tabulation of the votes cast — into a broad license for individual board members to hunt for purported election irregularities of any kind, potentially delaying certification and displacing longstanding (and court-supervised) processes for addressing fraud,” the complaint reads.
The board is comprised of three Republicans, one Democrat and a nonpartisan chair.
In a statement, Harris-Walz principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Democrats would win the case and continue fighting for eligible voters to “confidently cast their vote knowing it will count.”
“Certifying an election is not a choice, it’s the law,” Fulks said. “A few unelected extremists can’t just decide not to count your vote.”
The Democratic National Committee’s acting co-deputy executive director, Monica Guardiola, cast blame on Trump and the GOP for trying to “silence voters and overturn our democratic process,” while Nikema Williams, chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, criticized the State Election Board for attempting to “establish a new power of not certifying an election result should their preferred candidate lose.”
During a virtual meeting last week, some 850 people joined a call where public comment in opposition or support of the new rules was invited by the board. Election workers, voters and the Democratic Party of Georgia called the rules excessive and too last-minute, while high-profile conservative activists expressed support.
The board's own members urged caution to the others on some proposed rules. While discussing a rule that would direct counties and the secretary of State to post an accessible link to the certified list of electors, the panel's Democrat and nonpartisan members questioned whether the board had jurisdiction to enact such a rule.
“This is outside of our authority. Period,” said Sara Tindall Ghazal, the only Democrat on the board, citing Georgia law. “The Secretary of State has sole authority over management of the voter rolls.”
John Fervier, the board’s nonpartisan chair, said the rule would be in “direct contradiction” with state law. The panel voted 3-2 to initiate rulemaking on the proposal, nonetheless.
Prominent officials have weighed in on the panel’s changes.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) called the board’s actions an “11th-hour effort to impose new activist rulemaking” and said earlier this month that refusing to certify election results is unlawful.
However, former President Trump has praised the board’s three Republicans as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”
Updated at 6:53 pm.
